Monastery St Clare in Cormontreuil

Posted in Diocese of Reims, Ecclesiastical province of Reims, Poor Clairs

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The History of our Monastery

Our Monastery St Clare in Cormontreuil is a new one. It was built in 2000… But a monastery doesn’t grow like this ! If we date back the centuries, we discover that Saint Clare herself sent sisters founding a community to answer the call of the bishop of Reims. The sisters walked from Assisi, arrived in our city in 1220, and the presence of the Poor Clares continued till the French Revolution in 1792. In 1933, the Poor Clares in Nantes went in Reims to found again a monastery and in 2000, we moved to that site, more adapted to our spirituality.

The monastery today

To be coherent with our charisma, we set up in the suburbs of the city, near enough to enable everyone who want to join us for praying. From the monastery, we can see all the city of Reims. Our surroundings, in a new district, composed with medical and social establishments, stimulate our mission of interceding for the whole world.

Special features of our monastery

We are about 25 sisters, of different ages, coming from France or Belgium. Our last foundations (in Ivory Coast, Democratic Congo, Togo, Republic of Congo), occasionally send us sisters for short visits. That maintains our communion, and these exchanges with young Churches of Africa, so full of vitality, is full of pep ! Fraternal living is very important for us !

In the long tradition of saint Francis of Assisi, and of the begging-sisters who went all over the diocese, asking subsistence for the commmunity and exchanging peace on behalf of Jesus, sisters of ours are sometimes sended. They walk, empty handed, and begg board and lodging. They especially begg the friendship of everybody they meet, and that the whole community will pray for.

From our African sisters, we have received the gesture prayer : letting the Spirit’s blow pass in our gestures, in the rhythm of a psalm, a song, to express the joy of the Gospel, because God is joy and because Trinity dances !